The Release of WordPress 6.5 is on the Horizon

In the constantly evolving world of digital technology, web development leads the way, and WordPress is a primary player in this arena. The acclaimed content management system keeps its audience eager with its three-times-a-year updates, and the forthcoming version 6.5, due in March 2024, is no different. This release is sure to feature a gamut of enhancements and innovative components, designed to enhance productivity, personalization, and collaboration on the platform.

As of November 15, 2023, we don’t yet have a full inventory of new features and improvements, but we do have insights into several key developments. We’ll delve into these below.

What’s In the Pipeline?

Speedy Translations

Many are eagerly awaiting the imminent enhancement – performant translations. Conceived by the WordPress Performance Team, this feature is designed to dramatically improve the performance of sites that utilize translations.

This innovation embodies a new streamlined internationalization (i18n) library that does not only ensure lightning-fast speeds but also reduces memory usage when loading the binary MO files that WordPress employs for translations. This result is a smooth, effective experience for both site users and developers.

The library also supports multiple locales’ simultaneous loading, thereby hastening the locale switching process. Moreover, it supports PHP file-stored translations, eliminating the need for a binary file format and capitalizing on server-level caching, if available, to further enhance site speeds and memory efficiency.

Typeface Selection

The role of typography in designing a website’s aesthetic experience and user interaction cannot be overstated. To this end, WordPress 6.5 plans to introduce a ground-breaking Font Library, a feature originally scheduled for version 6.4, but later moved to 6.5, promises to revolutionize typography management on WordPress websites.

The Font Library grants users the ability to browse through a broad selection of open-license fonts in the admin panel, offering an experience paralleling media management. Worth noting is that this library is not subject to theme restrictions, but is expandable for plugin developers, thus facilitating enhanced flexibility and customization options.

Moreover, the Font Library will spearhead server-side @font-face CSS generation and printing. Collectively, this feature is projected to significantly improve the visual attractiveness and overall aesthetics of any WordPress websites that deploy it.

Emphasis on Collaborative Features

Version 6.5 of WordPress plans to stress its collaborative features. This focus is a part of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which seeks to enhance WordPress’s collaborative functionality.

These collaboration-oriented features will take center stage in version 6.5 and future releases throughout 2024. Users can expect WordPress to become more cooperative and user-friendly, making web development and content creation a more engaging and streamlined process.

Enhancements to WordPress Admin Accessibility

Admin notifications keep WordPress users informed when actions go well — or not so well.

This upcoming WordPress version seeks to offer mechanisms that help users with accessibility requirements navigate through notifications in a more standardized manner, rather than depending solely on visual cues.

In addition to this enhancement, efforts are underway to increase contrast for focus styling in form inputs, buttons, and links. This continues from the previous effort introduced in WordPress 5.3 to include some elements that were formerly missing.

Automation of WordPress Testing Workflows

When a new version like WordPress 6.5 is launched, the build package installations (e.g., wordpress-6.5.zip) are manually tested by WordPress.org core developers and release party attendees. However, their testing doesn’t typically cover a broad range of PHP, MySQL or older WordPress versions. With over 60,000 plugins and hundreds of different hosting configurations, it’s quite an overwhelming task!

For the upcoming WordPress version, these tests could cover more areas programmatically to help avoid incompatible issues.

There’s also a suggestion to include links to WordPress Playground which would automatically generate a testing environment for every new functionality or patch, without the need to install a copy of WordPress locally. This could mean that more people without technical skills could be involved in testing and giving feedback.

Preventing Autoload for Bulky Options

Out of the box, WordPress is impressively fast, but as a site expands and adds new features, it can become slow, especially if unoptimized plugins overload the database with options loading at every visit.

The idea for the upcoming WordPress version is to stop these options from auto-loading if they exceed a certain size, to improve speed.

Automatic Update Reversals

One major talk of the town is the ability to rollback auto-updates for plugins and themes. This feature, currently available as the “Rollback Auto Update” plugin, marks a turning point in website management. It automatically restores plugins to a previous version if an auto-update fails, thereby boosting update confidence, raising site security and reducing support dependency. However, even with this added layer of security, a regular site backup remains crucial. Including this feature in WordPress 6.5 represents a significant leap towards a more seamless and user-friendly website management.

Read more: Will “Rollback Auto Update” Be Included in WordPress 6.5?

Stay Tuned, More Ahead

Version 6.5 of WordPress is set to bring in a host of significant enhancements and features set to improve the user experience for both seasoned developers and beginners. With its primary focus being performance, customization, and collaboration, this release symbolizes a significant stride in web development.

Keep an eye open for more updates regarding WordPress 6.5!